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At least two new GOP House members now say they won’t enroll in congressional health care programs. Rep.-elect Bobby Schilling of Illinois told ABC’s “Topline”: “My family and I are bringing our own health care to Washington … Congress shouldn’t have anything better than the American people.” Another to-be member refusing congressional insurance is Rep.-elect Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, who says “Why should my health care as a public official be any different than anybody else’s?” (Hat tip: POLITICO Pulse)

The declarations come after another GOP Rep.-elect, Andy Harris of Maryland, stood up during freshman orientation this week and demanded to know why his government health care plan would take a month to kick in. Some Democrats are calling on Republicans pushing health-care repeal to forgo their own government health care plans out of principle.

Should current and incoming members of Congress who opposed the health care reform bill turn down their government-provided health care?

All current and incoming members of Congress should work to have every American have health care coverage that is equal to their government-provided health care. The only other non-hypocritical option is dropping their own.

Congratulations to Reps-elect Bobby Shilling (Illinois) and Mike Kelly (Pennsylvania) for refusing to enroll in congressional health care programs. Whether or not current and incoming members of Congress are opposed to the health care reform bill, such a benefit should not even be available as part of their benefit package. With the large salary package they receive, there should be no need to provide health care insurance different from what is available to the public and paid for at their own expense. This is one benefit that must go.

Anyone who ran against extending health care benefits to all Americans should decline federal benefits they oppose for their constituents. Personally, I think the lame-duck Congress should pass a law that as of Jan 1, 2011, new members of Congress will not receive health care benefits, since that’s what the vast majority ran on. Let the Republican majority in the House then try to repeal that one. Short of that, the DSCC should be preparing ads already that focus on the hypocrisy of running against health care while taking it from the same taxpayers they want to deny it to.

All members of Congress should be prohibited from buying the government's health insurance plan. I believe they should be prohibited because it is another incentive to become a career politician.

But until members of Congress are prohibited from buying the government's health insurance plan, they should refuse to buy out of principle.

As a state legislator, I don't purchase the health insurance or pension plan offered by our state government. I have an individual health insurance plan and a IRA. I do this out of principle because our state doesn't prohibit us from buying these state plans. I've done this since being elected in 2006.

The damage done to our health care system is beyond this political tit-for-tat. The issue now is whether Americans will be able to keep the coverage they currently have, or afford it altogether. The irony in all of this is, Americans and our workforce will have more health coverage security once Obamacare is repealed. Then Congress can get down to business and fix what needs to be done to bring more competition, choice, affordability and transparency into our health care system and the insurance marketplace.

Of course they should be able to decline. On the campaign trail leading up to health care reform, the promise made was: If you like your health care the way it is, you can keep it. I assume the reform package made good on that promise.

What the Republican congressmen don't get is that people don't need political stunts; they need the security of health care. The point is that everyone should have health care and all employers, including Congress, should be in a position to provide it for their employees. That is why the health care reform fight was so important, even though it had political costs. It has provided security for all people to have health care whether you're a janitor or a congressman.

Yes, they should if they have any level of dignity and are willing to actually demonstrate what they believe in. They should also support privatizing their congressional pension if they support the same for Social Security for the rest of us.

If they want to bring their own health care to Washington with them, more power to them. I would go one step further on their behalf and give them individual tax relief for their policies to ensure their personal ownership and portability of whatever policies they choose. Maybe ... just maybe, we can talk.

Of course not. Everyone in the United States should have access to health care, just like everyone has (in most states) a right to basic education. All Americans should have an equal opportunity to exercise their God-given talents to succeed in life, and access to health care, like access to education, is necessary to enjoy that opportunity.

As a nation, we seem to have chosen an employment-based, private health insurance system to provide access to health care, despite its manifest inefficiency. An 11-nation survey released yesterday demonstrated again what health policy experts have long known — “adults in the United States are by far the most likely to go without care because of costs, have trouble paying medical bills, encounter high medical bills even when insured, and have disputes with insurers or payments denied” than citizens of other countries because of the system we have developed.

But the Affordable Care Act sticks with this private insurance system. Given that, congressmen should get their insurance through their employer just like other Americans do.

If a few are wealthy enough to afford a better plan, I have no problem with that. But they should not use this as an excuse for denying care to other Americans. The Affordable Care Act, it should be noted, does treat members of Congress and their staff different from all other Americans — they are the only Americans required to receive their health insurance through the new health insurance exchanges. This should guarantee that all Americans (or at least Americans in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia) get high quality health insurance through the exchanges.

We have a system that incentivizes employer-based health care. This is a structural flaw in our health care system that President Obama and congressional Democrats have dishonestly defended in the 2008 campaign and in the health care debate.

Federal employees have private insurance facilitated and subsidized by their employer, like everyone else who receives employer-provided health care. Members of Congress get access to that insurance.

That is simply not comparable to health care reform and it is somewhere between dishonest and ignorant to conflate them.

The only members of Congress who will turn down congressional health care coverage will be those who have a private plan based on a spousal relationship. It would be too risky or too expensive not to go with their employer-provided plan.

Every two years the Washington parlor game begins again as the political class watches the rookies waltz in to town and proclaims them laughably naïve.

Now, there's no question these new members are going to say and do things that in their political dotage they will want to take back. A current senior House member used to sleep in his office as a freshmen to save the taxpayers money.

As freshmen classes go, this one is particularly idealistic and convinced of their beliefs. Let's have the debate on their ideas for now. Starting off in typical Washington fashion by questioning their symbolic actions heads us down the wrong path. We've already seen symbolism take over common sense on the earmark front. Let's stop it there.

If Obamacare offered as much choice as federal health plans, there would be no need to repeal it. Obamacare is a mandatory, one-size-fits-all, expensive, Cadillac plan.

The federal health plan allows workers to sign up for low-cost catastrophic plans with health savings accounts (illegal under Obamacare) or high-cost plans with more coverage, all at different prices. Or workers can opt out altogether and pick another system without penalty (again, illegal under Obamacare). Sign-ups and plan changes are once a year, not if you get sick.

If Congress replaced Obamacare with the federal plan, everyone would be better off.

Why doesn’t anyone ever ask the members of Congress who call for higher taxes if they should have to pay them anyway, even if Congress doesn’t vote to change the rates?

It is refreshing to hear that some of the incoming freshmen plan to keep their private health plans. It's part of what makes this incoming congressional class different than most of those we’ve seen since the 1994 election. The idea that “some Democrats are calling on Republicans pushing health care repeal to forgo their own government health care plans out of principle” is just the latest version of that old political game, “Gotcha!” It’s silly and it’s sad.

There are a lot more important things to address than that – and it's just this kind of stuff that independent voters in particular seemed to reject in the last election. They want solutions, not sophomorics.

Wealthy anesthesiologist Andy Harris put his foot in it, big time. Oblivious to the plight of real Americans (who often have to wait three months, if they get covered at all), Harris demanded to know why he wasn’t covered on Day One the way he is used to. All the posturing in the world by Republicans won’t change their lack of seriousness about health care (did you know in a government shutdown, Congress is still covered even if you are not?). Harris is their poster boy and they will get to love him and live with him for the next two years.

As long as any benefit is the stated policy or the law, I see nothing wrong with members of Congress availing themselves of them. They and we would be better served if they sought to change policies they oppose.

Clearly Mr. Schilling and Mr. Kelly miss the point. It's nice that they have the financial resources to have options. Why don't they take their anti-mandate principles further and refuse to have health care insurance all together?

Did liberal Democrats who objected to the Bush tax cuts refuse them out of principle?

If not, then why should congressional Republicans be held to a different standard? Congress's policy is to offer health care to its members. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with having Republican lawmakers covered by Congress's health care plan, even if they object to government-run health care.

Jim Johnson (guest)
VA:

They are not eligible for Obamacare, they are specifically excluded. This was one of the complaints against Obamacare that it was not good enough for Congress.

John Kettlewell (guest)
FL:

This site gets worse by the week. This will be nothing in two days. Employer offers health care coverage, choose to get it or not. I have no sympathy for people making six figures. What does Obamacare support have to do with employment coverage? The usual flinging of 'hypocrisy'. Boring. Keep trying, liberals. And finally, the legislators get no credit for using some random health care plan from wherever that isn't the government. It's irrelevant.

Dick fox (guest)
TX:

Why are there so many people in this country with pre-existing conditions? Because so many of them choose to buy a more expensive home or a third car or a hunting lease and forego paying for health insurance. Now, thanks to the government's largess, we can all pitch in to pay for their coverage and they can keep their luxuries.

Edward Shea (guest)
MD:

The proposal is juvenile - the sort of stuff usually confined to the sophomore table in the local high school cafeteria. It's also Exhibit A for why Democrats suffered at the polls just two weeks ago.

Linda Conley (guest)
OR:

Oh sure. Let all of us who opposed and still oppose the monstrosity that is Obamacare be without health care, government-sponsored or otherwise. And then we will sit back and wait while the global warming alarmists/liberal Democrats, particularly the fat cats like John Kerry and Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi, sell off their SUVs, their yachts, their many estates and shrink to a "sustainable" lifestyle to include tents for homes and cute outhouses.

Tom Genin (guest)
CT:

Isn't the hypocrisy the congressional Democrats who continue to receive the government plan while exempting themselves from the very regulations they are forcing on everyone else? There's always plenty of hypocrisy to go around in DC, but this appears to be the essence, definition, and winner.

Stefan Saal (guest)
NH:

Dude, your health care is somewhere in here: National Health Expenditures (NHE) grew 4.4 percent to $2.3 trillion in 2008, or $7,681 per person, and accounted for 16.2 percent of GDP. Medicare spending grew 8.6 percent to $469.2 billion in 2008, or 20 percent of total NHE. Medicaid spending grew 4.7 percent to $344.3 billion in 2008, or 15 percent of total NHE. Private spending grew 2.6 percent to $1.2 trillion in 2008, or 53 percent of total NHE. (HHS, latest exact figures)

Rick Mustard (guest)
OH:

Following the logic of your question, should those who vote against tax cuts be forced to continue paying at higher rates?

Clara Morrison (guest)
CA:

The Republicans aren't against health benefits provided by employers and as the government is their employer, I don't think they are being hypocritical. And as another poster pointed out, how many Dems refused to take the Bush tax cuts out of principle?

Steven Best (guest)
OH:

The moderator's question today is bogus, inane and slanted to drum up continued support for a poor piece of Democratic legislation. Just like the past two years, the battle has been health care and the problem remains jobs. Today's question and many of the responses continue to demonstrate how far removed the left is to the real problems we are facing.

Kim Anglebrandt (guest)
MI:

Well I see the talking heads have weighed in. How about this? We do not all have a right to health care at the expense of everyone else. What we have a right to is equal access to health care and health care insurance. Government employees including Congress should either pay for their own or get exactly the reduced care we have been forced into by Congress and Obama at the same rates we have to pay.

Lydia McNamara (guest)
IL:

Well, this is just goofy. One of the major tenets of conservative health care approach is employer-based health care. The government is now their employer. While the optics may be get them somewhere, it is really go against the grain of the argument.

Ken Feltman (guest)
DC:

Sadly, this is where it gets silly. Congressmen may oppose a health plan in which they are enrolled. Hypocrisy? No, just common sense and providing available protection for the member and his or her family.

Jacqueline Mixson (guest)
VA:

Congressional health care is not Obamacare. They have their own program which is ver nice, but they have a waiver and do not have to join Obamacare. Just as many labor unions have also received waivers and do not have to join Obamacare. The congressional health care package is a Cadillac package so of course, they exempted themselves.

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